Historians have strained to find evidence that Stuart's portraits of John FitzGibbon and John Foster (17401828), Speaker of the Irish House of Commons, were commissioned as a pair. There is no proof of this, indeed nothing in newspapers, which would have relished a story that connected these political opponents. Stuart's portrait of Foster is so painstaking that it is worth considering whether he employed an assistant, if not for the execution of the work, then for the research it would have required. Foster stands in the distinguished Palladian chamber of the Irish House of Commons.